#22

Hello everyone,

Here’s my rough demo for a track based on Ovid’s myth about Sibyl: she asks for eternal life but forgets to also ask for eternal youth, and eventually withers away to become a mere voice.

I’m on a tight budget, and I’m currently using Ableton Live 9 Lite. I’m using the stock Grand Piano, and here are the settings for the above demo:

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To my ears, the piano sounds flat and there’s a quiet rattling sound in there that is driving me mad. Are there any ways to make the piano sound better?

Is ‘Grand Piano’ not a very good instrument?
Or is it my settings that are making things worse?
Is it a question of compression or EQ?
Too much reverb?

There are so many variables that I don’t know what I should be doing to get a cleaner, brighter sound. Any suggestions that can help me improve things while sticking to my non-existent budget would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!

9 Likes
#23

Here is my track: Brexit #9.

The source track is a Theresa May speech to Parliament. Last week I tried using the speech in the Bluetooth-breaking-up challenge. For complicated reasons, I wasn’t getting good results with that. So I made this instead last week, but didn’t turn it in then.

4 Likes
#24

I acquired a norns/grid combo this week, and aside from a few technical glitches, am really absorbed by them. Instead of posting a single piece, I am posting a playlist of these early experiments with a few of my early go to patches. They are in chronological order if that matters. There is a ton of monome knowledge and experience here, and I could use any and all input/feedback at this point. So I guess pick something randomly and leave a comment. Thanks much for your time and consideration.

Disquiet Junto Project 0379: Open Studios
The Assignment: Share a track, get feedback, and give feedback.

Step 1: The purpose of this week’s project is to provide participants opportunities to get feedback on works-in-progress. Consider work you’re doing you’d appreciate responses to from fellow Junto participants.

Step 2: Either upload an existing recording (sketches and mid-process takes may prove optimal), or record something new and post it online for feedback. If there are some things, in particular, you’d like feedback on, mention what they are.

Step 3: After uploading, be sure to listen to the work of other participants, and to post responses.

More on this 379th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Open Studios / The Assignment: Share a track, get feedback, and give feedback — at:

https://disquiet.com/0379/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0379-open-studios/

7 Likes
#25

Hey Daniel,
I thought it was great overall. I was grooving to it and I love the mood it evokes. The only comment I have is that up until about 1:43, the guitar playing the melody sounds like it’s in a different room from the rest of the band. After that, it merges in (spatially) with everyone else. Was that an artistic decision?

2 Likes
#26

Hey Martin,

Yeah, the stock piano in Ableton can be a little weak. Even the Ableton Live Pack “Grand Piano” offers only marginally better presets. If you have that pack, try the “Grand Piano Equal Mellow Solo” preset–it’s the best one they offer to my ears. However, if you have the legacy “Partner Instruments Compilation” pack, you’ll find a couple really nice grand pianos in there. My favorite by far is “Studio Grand West Village Split” instrument by e-Instruments. It’s mellow, but bright, more of a Yamaha sound than a Steinway.

2 Likes
#27

I like the way this built up slowly. It was very relaxing to listen to.

1 Like
#28

I thought the piano sounded fine. Excellent composition.

2 Likes
#29

Good Afternoon all!

I utilized Drum patterns on the Roland DJ 808 for the 909, 808, 707, 606 banks with 379 and counting from 16 to 1 14 (3) 10 (7) 7(9). I then loose in the ROLI Noise, ROLI Block and Korg SV1 with an ipad thru head phone out to CH 4 line in addition to Link and Bluetooth. I then played thru a loop and exported the wave files. I then added these back in as modified clips with effects on their individual channels. I then loaded the clips into each of the 4 turn table slots where I played thru those along with the original instrumentation. I used a MAX for live EQ that I built that I also had mapped to dials on channels 3 and 1.

I just jammed I never know what to do with it from here…

5 Likes
#30

Hi Richie, cool track but I wanted the bass to hit harder!!

2 Likes
#31

@glsmyth Beautiful soundscape that feels like it could accompany us through the five acts of a play. You’ve really got me thinking about the concepts of movement embedded in the haiku: falling >> tugging >> balanced (implied by “solstice”). The strings near the start of the track feel like they are tugging, and there are several examples of falling (descending notes). There’s also a kind of balance in the way things reach a climax around the 7 minute mark, roughly half way through the track.

I love that you connected the haiku and your composition with Hamlet, because for last two weeks I’ve had the ghost’s line echoing inside my mind:

O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there

It’s such a lovely coincidence, because there is that word “falling” again!!

1 Like
#32

I feel like this track is most of the way there, but needs… something else. Or maybe it doesn’t and I should just stick a pin in it?

The drum breaks are sampled from “Vital Transformation” by the Mahavishnu Orchestra. The tune is in an odd time signature, but I edited the breaks to be in 4/4. They’re running through some Beat Repeat and are gently augmented with a 909.

The 808 bass is built from three kicks in the “strange” folder from the pATCHES 808 Bass library (https://patches.zone/808-bass-samples), pitched and stretched by varying amounts.

The synthesized vocals are sampled from “031119 Koala Mouth” by Yobink (https://soundcloud.com/yobink/koala-2119-02-11-23-56-15), run through the same Beat Repeat as the drums.

Finally, the clarinet is sampled from a recording of an Astor Piazzola piece made by Heather Hardy, a student in one of my music technology classes. I dropped it an octave, stretched it, and applied some Echo.

5 Likes
#33

I’ve had an idea to make some pop rock songs. Earlier this week I came up with the chord progression and fiddled around with the main melody. I’m thinking of adding some guitar and hopefully drastically improving the drums. But this is mainly an experiment to try and develop the right palette for what I have in mind generally.

That’s Penny in the pic. She eats everything - blankets, clothing, wood, rocks…

4 Likes
#34

The playlist is now rolling:

1 Like
#35

Thanks so much, DeDe. Appreciate Your input and compliment.

I Listened to it again today on My lil portable speaker, and do, indeed, feel that either the verse needs its volume lowered, or the chorus raised in volume (or they both need to be EQed again, and/or similarly.)

My dream, also, is to write music for car commercials and horror movies; what they have in common, I do not know, but thanks.

1 Like
#36

Well thanks for pointing that out, interesting, I have to re-listen. But it is certain that the guitar space is exactly the same all over the track, same reverb throughout and same amount of reverb. I didn’t change that with automation or something. Might be the guitar volume?

2 Likes
#37

I’m fascinated by music for art installations or just sound installations. Or nice things like the Sea Organ in Zadar.
Sounds/music that are not made to be the main focus.
In this genre we have some famous precursor… Brian Eno “Music For Installations”…
My first thought was not to take part in this weeks challenge. But why not?
At least my submission can open up for some discussion and maybe input.
Are the samples a part of the music or not? What kind of art do you think of when hearing this. What are they looking at?
Samples from freesound.org
https://freesound.org/s/179777/
https://freesound.org/s/463516/
Thanks!

4 Likes
#38

During the time in grad school when I had access to a Buchla, I found it really easy to get cool sounds out of it, and really hard to shape those sounds into actual music. So I ended up just recording a lot of my knob-twiddling and treating those recordings as a sample library. I say all this because I hear a lot of great samples in this track, many individual throbs that I’d like to hear repeated.

2 Likes
#39

In the spirit of Peter, Kate and Tony, this might want some lyrics, with a similar message of overcoming adversity. Know any singer-songwriters you could hand this off to?

2 Likes
#40

I started to compose that song with my brother a while ago and always got stuck after it ends… what could we add? The Disquiet Junto 0379 project is a great opportunity to get your feedback on that!

5 Likes
#41

Great soothing track :slight_smile: I would add some soft rain and a female voice talking quietly at times.

1 Like